Designing and building a fixed camp winter tent

[Moondog55]

Lots of reasons for asking for design input but the main one is that my beloved purchased 8 meters of "Japara" on eBay but it isn't suitable for clothing; being quite heavy duty.
Solo or two people tent
For the last couple of years I have been thinking about winter tents heated by small wood-fired stoves.
My Paddymade tent is too small to use with a stove so I know how much bigger it needs to be and the 8000mm * 1550mm piece of fabric is just enough to make a roof.
So wall tent, or tipi?? A wall tent is probably the easiest option but might need a much stronger frame
What sort of frame, internal or external.
Double skin or triple skin? If a triple skin how do you stop the inner from touching the outer and how do you hang the fly?

And this is an intellectual exercise at this point so all and any suggestions are welcome, no matter how left field.
The tent has to fit me, and I am reasonable tall and heavy 1841mm tall and 110kg and the minimum criteria are being able to stand to get dressed and not touch either end while sleeping

[Davidf61]

Google up "Whelan Tent" or Whelan Shelters".

Very simple design/construction, a litle fire to radiate in to shelter. When I was a Boy Scout [many moons ago] the leader we had always had one of these for himself, we thought it so uncool at the time, but it actually made a fair bit of sense.

[Maelgwn]

Tipi - for simpler construction and proven design?

[Franco]

Whelen for open fires , tipi for an enclosed 'hot" shelter.
My thinking is that the Whelen type (Paddy Pallin had one of those) is more for 3 season but for real winter temps the tipi will be more efficient and safer too with an enclosed stove. (think of what happens when it is snowing)
As suggested before,it will be hard to overlook Kifaru/TiGoart/SeekOutside for inspiration.
Note that Josh at RutaLocura has made a slightly bigger version of the TiGoat Vertex 5 (in Cuben...) called lone Peak, I call it Vertex 5.5 (5.5') 60sq feet.
http://www.rutalocura.com/Cuben_Vertex.html
To me that indicates the 5 is a bit small (54 square feet, same shape)

[Davidf61]

There used to be [ could still be ] an old bloke up the local hills, he made a crust collecting/selling firewood. He had a tipi thing to "live" in and next to it an el cheapo dome tent which was sleeping quarters only. Told me he wasn't a fan of fires in tents, said it always goes pear shaped in the end. His tipi looked pretty comfy, had an old armchair in it!

[Franco]

talking about fires,the other day awaiting to be picked up for a walk I was reading why smoke seems to follow you (you create a low pressure area so the smoke fills that vacuum ) and someone suggested building an "indian" fire to minimise smoke.
We were going into the Lerderderg gorge so I took the opportunity to test that. It works...
You build the fire still on a sort of pyramid shape but with the kindling on top then twigs,small branches and the logs at the bottom.
Almost no smoke at all came out of it till we had a bit of a breeze.

[Moondog55]

I have looked at that site when I was looking at carbon fiber tent poles. I like the big tipi design. I don't have enough fabric to make that size tho.
I also like the Eureka Outfitter version of the old standard Timberline 6 person.
The more I think about things the easiest to sew would be a small wall tent, but deciding on the frame is probably where I should start.

All an intellectual discussion at this point, I'll not do anything until this winter is over

[Moondog55]

Any thoughts on a "Truncated Pyramid" style tent??
The main problem with tipis is the lack of clearance as you get closer to the wall/floor boundary.
I was watching a program on Ancient Egypt and mention was made of the famous truncated pyramid and I thought that this might be a possible solution to the problem of maximising usable floor space.
I admit I would not have a clue as to how to build it tho, except that the tie-out point at the change in angle would have to be very strong

http://www.korthalsaltes.com/model.php? ... nt_pyramid

[Franco]

A problem with that sort of design is that you would need extra poles, with a centre pole only it would only work (in my opinion...) in fair weather.
Maximising usable space from a "pyramid" shaped shelter was how Henry Shires at Tarptent ended up with the Strato Spire II, in effect an end supported double pyramid.
Took about 4 years of fiddling with loads of variations on the theme but I think the end result is pretty good.
However it will not work under a lot of snow, a foot or so is about the limit.

Mountain Hardware tried with the Hoopla/Hoop Dreams and Yurtini .
That same shape/frame was the starting point of the SS II project (called the Circus tent at the time...) but Henry gave up on that pretty fast .

[Moondog55]

For home manufacture and maximising space there are not a lot of options are there>

I think I will use this japara for an Arctic anorack then in case I actually do get to go the "Deep Freeze" next year